More than a Few Words

When I started my career, I was full of crazy, innovative ideas which were routinely shut down by senior managers. I grew to hate hearing "That isn't how we do things" or "We tried that and it didn't work". When I left corporate, I assumed I was leaving the negative energy behind. Unfortunately, resistance to change is human nature. I haven't changed. I still throw out lots of crazy, sometimes hal...

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation for business owners.  MTFW is hosted by Lorraine Ball and features interviews with marketing professionals from around the world.    In today's conversation, Mal MacCallion ,  discusses the common mistakes and challenges of starting a business.  He says:  1) If it was easy, everyone would do it. 2) You need to start with a clear definition of why y...

You have a blog for your business, that is an important first step.  But if you want to transform a good blog into a great one, there are several things you can do to improve your company blog, First you need to do is think about why you’re blogging. You need to identify very specific objectives for your blog. That will allow you to then measure the results of your activity to decide if this whole...

According to our guest Sheri Kay Hoff, the trick with good marketing is to be everywhere, but show up slightly different so your message is relevant to your audience.  Customers can smell a sales pitch a mile away, so you need to start a conversation with the goal of listening and helping, and earning the right to sell.  It will take more time than jumping right to the sales pitch, but it will pay...

The marketing minute is a shorter version of the popular More than a Few Words podcast. Instead of a conversation with a marketing professional Lorraine Ball shares a quick tip to start your week, My husband and I took a trip through Central Europe. In the span of two weeks we were in three different countries with three different currencies and three different languages. Neither my husband or I s...

More than a Few Words is a Marketing Conversation for Business Owners. Why does your business exist?  If you answered to make money, you are missing the point.  That may be  why your own a business, but the business exists to create value for your customers.  As you define your reason to exist consider, the value you create, who you create it for, and what the customer will ultimately do with  you...

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation hosted by Lorraine Ball featuring brief interviews with entrepreneurs and marketing professionals from around the world.  This week, chats with Tracy Brinkman about productivity hacks you can use to take control of the chaos in your day.  Time Blocking: If you have a task, that is high priority make a date with yourself.  Block out time as if is an...

Did you know that  57% of all purchase decisions are actually made before a customer ever talks to a supplier. Think about that! More than half of the people who pick up the telephone to talk to you have already made up their mind to do business with you. That's good news, but the question is, how do you get more people to call you? And how do these people make up their mind before they ever talk...

More than a Few Words is a Marketing Conversation for Business Owners.  Sometimes you just have to jump in.  Video is so important as part of your marketing mix, and most business owners are not expert videographers., but that's ok.  Our guest Nina Froriep says you just need to start. Jump in!  You will improve over time. the trick is to do it consistently. These do not need to be long videos. As...

The Marketing Minute is a quick bite of marketing from Lorraine Ball, host of More than a Few Words    You probably don't want to hear this. I'm going to do it SEO wrong. You're spending all your time focused on what search engines want, worrying about stuffing your pages with keywords, inbound links, and outbound links. But search engines don't buy from you, people do So I want you to think about...

The world is getting smaller all the time.  Today, even small business can afford to compete globally.  This week we talked with Wendy Pease about free resources, and tips for business owners interested in selling their product internationally. Did you know that every state offers grants that subsidize the cost of getting ready to export your product?

Organizations, movements, products, companies thrive or fail when their stories thrive or fail. So if you have a deeply resonant, emotionally significant functionally relevant story, then the organization will continue to thrive. But when that story fails to continue to be relevant, that's when the demise starts happening.   This week, our guest Kurian Tharakan  talked about the types of stories l...

There are lots of cool tools and features that you can add to a new website. The problem is sometimes companies try to do everything; ,stunning layouts with drop downs and rotating and parallax effects,.  They think using all of those tools makes the site look sleek and modern. In reality, what you end up with is a jumbled mess. So as you look at your website, step back and ask some basic question...

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation for business owners hosted by Lorraine Ball, founder of the  Digital Toolbox  Every business owner knows an article in the news can be a great boost to a business. The question is how do you get the media to notice you.  Our guest Mickey Kennedy explains it is not by sending another boring release about your product or service.  You need to be crea...

One of the most interesting findings in this year's digital marketing survey was on the topic of blogging.  Fewer small business owners than ever told us they were using blogging as part of their marketing. And even those that do blog, are blogging less often. Why is this a big deal? Because blogging is such an important part of your internet marketing strategy. It provides content to feel your so...

The marketing podcast More than a Few Words is hosted by Lorraine Ball. Each week she interviews marketing professionals from around the world.    This week, our guest, Breanna Gun n is a copywriting professional.  She shared tips on how to create content which gets noticed and drives results.  To begin with she suggests you need to tell a story and make it engaging. Build the relationship with yo...

Each week, host Lorraine Ball chats with marketing and business professionals from around the world.  This week, Connie Jones, author of  WARRIOR ARISE , brings her perspective on how our beliefs limit our success.    We create these upper limits for ourselves fueled by messages we have received starting early on in childhood about who we are and who we are not.  And who we are supposed to be.  We...

Let's face it, sometimes mistakes happen and things go wrong. How you handle the situation will often determine whether your smallest mistake becomes a big crisis  Even if you can't predict what will go wrong, having a plan in place outlining specific steps in case of a mistake will make it easier to respond. This is true in the real world or on social media, where your Twitter or Facebook page ca...

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation for business owners hosted by Lorraine Ball, founder of the  Digital Toolbox    If the thought of attending a networking event leaves you shaking with fear, our guest Sean Tyler Foley has some advice for you.  1)  Stop looking for your next potential client.  Flip the script and look for people you can help. 2) Instead of worrying about your openin...

Every week, Lorraine Ball, chats with marketing professionals around the world. This week, the conversation is about Accountability.  Her guest, Don Markland  shared thoughts on developing an accountability habit for your business.  1) Accountability starts with you.  While you may find others to help keep you on track, you must take responsibility for actions and results.  2) There is no ego in a...

The marketing minute is a shorter version of the popular More than a Few Words podcast. Instead of a conversation with a marketing professional, host Lorraine Ball shares a quick tip to start you on your week   Why should I buy from you?  That simple question is at the heart of every sales conversation.  The question is simple, but the answer is more complex.  There are actually three parts to the...

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation for business owners hosted by Lorraine Ball, founder of the  Digital Toolbox  SEO can be  very technical as you focus on the the code and signals you send to search engines about your site.  But, according to our guest Dr. Ty Belknap it doesn't have to be. The single biggest thing you can do to improve your SEO is write, because search engines love...

This week in our marketing minute, Lorraine Ball continues the conversation about building a successful inbound marketing campaign. Once someone starts to fill out your form, you want to be sure they take that last step to submit the form. But the truth is, people don't actually like to submit. Although that is almost always the default choice when you build a form it is actually one of the least...

More than a Few Words is a marketing conversation for business owners hosted by Lorraine Ball, founder of the  Digital Toolbox  Social media used to be fun and games. But if you're doing it for your business sometimes it's a little stressful. Our guest Tamay Shannon says it doesn't have to be if you know how to approach it.   She says much of the stress comes from the overwhelming feeling you get...

More than a few words is a marketing conversation for business owners.  Each week, host Lorraine Balls spends a few minutes chatting with guests about things every business owner should know.  This week, Kris Ward, author of Win the Hour, Win the Day shares tips on how to shift how you spend your time. Her formula is 60% creation and only 40% administration., because it is the time spent on creati...